Mama Gone Green is a blog dedicated to raising happy children and reducing our impact on the Earth. My name is Taryn and I am the mother of 2 young kids and an environmental studies instructor at a community college in Portland, Oregon. Please join me as I journey through life as a mama, teacher, knitter, photographer, gardener, and environmentalist!

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Gratitude Sunday

Hello! Hope you are all enjoying your weekend. I am just stopping in to share some of my moments of gratitude from this week. This week I have felt grateful for:

Friends. I am so lucky to have such amazing friends. I have had such great support while going through my divorce transition; friends who come over to see me at my house after the kids have gone to bed (since I have very few nights that I can actually leave my house), friends who listen to me cry, complain and hope for hours on end, friends who send me a message when they can't be there to give me a hug, blog friends who support me from so far away, and friends who stand by my side no matter what. Thank you, friends.

Sunshine. After a week of some serious rain, we have had a couple of days of sunshine. It was much needed. My favorite part was driving past Mt. Hood yesterday; the sky was full sun and a lovely blue, and Mt. Hood was covered in a fresh coat of glistening white snow. It was Oregon at it's best.

Snuggles. Phoebe has been a snuggle machine lately. She has been sleeping in my bed almost every night, and not just in my bed, but snuggled close to me at all times. If we aren't touching, she wakes me up to make sure we get closer. A year ago, I would have probably been annoyed, and felt like I needed more space. But I now realize that we are both going through a transition, and I must say that it is nice to have her next to me. Plus, as she gets older and older, I know that these moments are fleeting. I have decided to embrace the snuggle with my entire self. ;)

Choices. Actually, this one is a bit of a double edged sword.... as I am making this transition into a single mama, and figuring out my plan for the future, I have lots of decisions to make. Lots of choices. Which honestly is a bit stressful and overwhelming at times. However, when I stop to think about it, having these choices is amazing. How wonderful that I have options--some may be more viable than others, but it is still nice to be able to steer my life towards the direction I want it to go in. I suppose that these options were always available to me, but as my life has been forced into a major change, I am now finally seeing my options and seeing different paths that I can follow.

Puppy Cow. My eldest dog, almost 15, is very near the end. And while I am not grateful for having to watch him suffer, and knowing that sometime soon I will likely have to make a hard decision about when to end his life, I am so grateful to have had him in my life for such a long time. He started to go downhill, fairly rapidly, about a year ago. For an entire year, I have felt like I have only had weeks or months left with him. And it has now been a year. So I am grateful for this "extra" time and grateful for every moment I can share with him.

Medicine. It's almost ironic that I am putting this on here. I am taking an herb class right now and have been fascinated by what I am learning and am so eager to transition away from regular medicine and work on improving my family's health with herbs. But, at the same time, we are rather dependent on pharmaceuticals, and this week has been a week of meds. Phoebe has been sick and has had a fever and some serious asthma issues and I had hives randomly appear all over my neck. If we lived 150 years ago, our survival would probably be bleak!

4 comments:

I hope those choices give you flexibility and happiness as you raise your children. Fingers crossed!! I love reading your gratitude list, you are hopeful and focused on the better part of life. My sister says any years after 10 for a dog are bonus years so you definitely have 5+ yay!!!!

Super list and beautiful phoots.I'm very interested to hear more about your herb class, something I would love to do.I'm also sorry about your dog, my Twinkie just turned 11 so I know the feelings we havefor our fur babies. Happy week ahead and happy Thanksgiving.

So sorry about Puppy Chow, I know how hard this can be. Sending you light as you move through this.

Your photos are gorgeous Taryn, and your list is lovely as always. I hear you on the choices my friend, so many decisions to make, and choices that lay ahead. Wishing you all the best as you navigate it all.

I understand about the choices. That was me 14 years ago with 4 little ones. Its hard but stay the course! Sorry about your pup. We are watching our Ashton fade too. This past year was so rough on him and I've said...here and there...."It won't be long". He's still here though and we are grateful too. Hope this week sees everyone healthier! Keep working on the herbs!